January 9, 2012

Two Mammoth men, one of them a member of the Mammoth Unified School District school board, were arrested Wednesday in connection with their alleged sexual involvement with a 14-year-old Santa Barbara girl.
Dr. Andrew C. Bourne, 46, a recent chief of staff at Mammoth Hospital and head of vascular surgery, and Joseph T. Walker, 48, are being held on $1 million bail each.

January 9, 2012

By order of the U.S. Supreme Court, California must reduce its prison population starting this year. A solution by Governor Jerry Brown and state Legislators will be to send low-level, non-violent felony convicts to county jail rather than state prison.
Dubbed âinmate realignment,â the program will also reduce the population at fire camps and crews like the Owens Valley Conservation Camp. The reduction statewide could be as many as 1,500 fewer inmates annually, down from 4,300.
Bart Chambers, Battalion Chief at the Owens Valley camp was unavailable for comments at press time.

January 9, 2012

A pump malfunction at Fish Springs Hatchery between Big Pine and Independence is being blamed for the death of approximately 40,000 trout.
According to Department of Fish and Game Public Information Officer Andrew Hughan, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had shut off a pump that supplies the hatchery with water Wednesday morning. For some reason, the back-up pump for the facility was unable to supply enough water to one of the large holding ponds to keep the water circulating, which resulted in the death of the fish.